1. |
Acrobats
02:26
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Acrobats
On the road all song and dance
Out of the garden they advance
Out the door of the grey hotel
In a town with no church bell
Kids go on ahead of the team
The others follow in a dream
In the distance make a sign
And all the apple trees resign
They have barbells new and old
Tambourines and hoops of gold
A bear and monkey in the know
Catching pennies as they go
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2. |
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Look Down, Look Down
Look down, look down, from Sacre-Coeur, the white
domes on the artist’s hill, the roofs in mist,
backslide into Pigalle, and the whores leaning
in the alleys, crude beauties, go on around
by Beaubourg, in abstraction, all its girders
showing, fire eaters and street singers outside,
what’s left of the old market, and we cross
the Seine, muddy and green, rocking, the hay-
stack doors, Notre-Dame, without a sacrament,
the poet’s hotel,—the city, our mother. The haze
burning off, the river slipping, we kissed,
but it was stolen; we walk Rue des Ecoles,
like always, you saying—oh, here it is: home,
bread, vin de table, like nowhere on earth.
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3. |
The Bells
03:07
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The Bells
Listen my gypsy boy
The bells are ringing joy
But we who are mad lovers
Hope that no one discovers
But we aren’t hidden well
And in turn every bell
Spies us from the steeple
Telling all the people
Tomorrow Hank and Cyprian
Marie Ursula and Catherine
The baker and her man
And my cousin Suzanne
Will smile as I go by
I won’t know where to fly
You’re far away I’ll cry
And maybe I will die
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4. |
The Lorelei
02:43
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The Lorelei
In Baccaracus was a goldhair sorceress
Who let each lover in turn die of love
And the bishop had summoned her to trial
But in advance had pardoned her for beauty
O lovely Lorelei with amethyst eyes
What magician gave you your sorcery
I’m tired of living and my eyes are cursed
Those who looked into them have perished
My eyes O they are fires not amethysts
Hurl it hurl it into the fire this sorcery
I flame inside those flames O Lorelei
Another can judge you who sorcery me
Bishop you laugh Instead pray to the Virgin
For me put me to death and God defend you
My lover has gone to a distant country
And so put me to death as I love nothing
My heart hurts me so bad I have to die
If I look at myself I have to die
My heart hurts me so bad since he’s not here
My heart hurt me so bad the day he went
The bishop called three chevaliers with lances
Take her to the convent this demented woman
Go Lorelei so crazy with your trembling eyes
You’ll be a nun and dress in black and white
Then they went all four on down the road
The Lorelei imploring with eyes like stars
Chevaliers let me climb that hill so high
To see for one last time my dear chateau
So I can mirror one last time in the river
Before I join the virgins and the widows
Up there the wind was twisting her undone hair
The chevaliers were shouting Lorelei Lorelei
Down there on the Rhine a skiff is coming
My lover’s standing there sees me calls me
My heart is going soft my lover’s coming
And she leans over and falls in the river
As she sees in the water the lovely Lorelei
With her eyes like the Rhine her hair the sun
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5. |
Rosemary
03:28
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Rosemary
At the steps up to this
House the woman went in
Who for two hours of bliss
I followed in Amsterdam
At last I blew a kiss
But the canal was bare
The quay and no one saw
My kisses find her there
As I gave her my life
In this two-hour affair
Rosemary’s the name I chose
So that I could remember
Her flowery mouth who knows
And slow I sailed from Holland
So I could marry the rose
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6. |
Autumn
03:48
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Autumn
Into the mist goes a wayfaring stranger
And his ox slowly in the autumn mist
So the poverty town’s hidden in shame
And as he goes he sings in undertone
A song of love and infidelity
All about a ring and a broken heart
Oh! autumn autumn put summer to death
Into the mist go two grey silhouettes
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7. |
Chloe
02:23
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Anemone and columbine
Are budding where dejection
Is sleeping in the garden
Between love and rejection
Our shadows that the night
Has wasted have come here
The sun that turns them somber
And all will disappear
The deities of the living
Water let down their hair
She’s gone you have to follow
That shadow is your prayer
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8. |
Marie
03:49
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Marie
You danced it as a girl
And will as an old lady
The hornpipe is a whirl
Bells ring when will it be
That you come back Marie
The masque in silence lies
The music is so far
As if out of the skies
I'd love you barely do
It's so fine to be blue
The sheep in snow go by
Wool flocks silver flakes
The soldiers pass and I
Don't have a heart it's so
Wayward what do I know
Where will your long hair go
Curling like ocean foam
Where will your long hair go
Your hands October leaves
Our vows the wind unweaves
I walk along the Seine
Old book under my arm
The river's like my pain
It slips around the bend
Will this week ever end
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9. |
Mirabeau Bridge
02:01
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Mirabeau Bridge
Under Mirabeau Bridge the river
Seine runs our loves
Do I have to remember
Pleasure after pain whenever
Night is coming the hours toll
The days go by over my soul
And hand in hand we’ll always turn
Face to face while
Under our bridge of arms are borne
Eternal looks the waves so worn
Night is coming the hours toll
The days go by over my soul
Love goes by like that current
Love goes by
Like life in a slow crescent
And like Hope it’s violent
Night is coming the hours toll
The days go by over my soul
The days will pass the weeks forever
Neither old times
Nor love can we recover
Under Mirabeau Bridge the river
Night is coming the hours toll
The days go by over my soul
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10. |
The Gypsy
03:24
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The Gypsy
The gypsy knew it in advance
Our lives divided by the nights
We said goodbye to her and then
Out of that hole Hope’s lights
Dancing on two feet as we liked
Love was as heavy as a bear
And the bluebird lost its plumes
The panhandler his prayer
We’re no angels but in the hopes
Of love and on the road we hold
Hands as we go thinking of all
The gypsy had foretold
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11. |
Song of the Outcast
03:12
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Song of the Outcast
Milky Way O luminous girl
Of the white streams of Canaan
Of the white skin of lovers
Dead swimmers will we follow
Your flight to other nebulas
The demons of chance lead us
In the song of the firmament
And to their lost fiddles
The human race is dancing
In their descent and backwards
Destiny destiny inscrutable
Kings shaken by insanity
And those shivering stars
False women in your beds
Wastes history overcomes
Leopold the old prince regent
Guardian of two mad kings
Does he sob dreaming them
As the fireflies flicker
In gold midsummer night
By a château sans a lady
A barque with barcaroles
White lake a breath of wind
Shaking in spring a dying
Swan was sailing O siren
One day the king drowned
Himself in silver water
Mouth open floated back
To shore to sleep still with
Face to the changing sky
June your sun’s fire’s a lyre
Burning my tender fingers
Sad and lyric delirium
I stray through lovely Paris
Without the heart to die
Sundays are eternal
And the hurdy-gurdy
Sobs in the grey square
Flowers on Paris balconies
Lean like the tower of Pisa
Paris nights drunk on gin
Blazing with electricity
Streetcars green fire spine
Music on down the line
Of rails crazy machines
Cafés blowing with smoke
All love the gypsies cry
The sniffling soda fountain
The waiters in loincloths
To you you I loved so
I who know lays for queens
The complaints of my days
Slave hymns to the eels
The ballad of the outcast
And the song to the siren
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12. |
Moulin Rouge
02:09
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Moulin Rouge
"Comme la chanson est belle"
Chantez la Mademoiselle
Dansant dans le Moulin Rouge
"Love is a leap" she sighed
"Someday I'll be your bride,
When I leave the Moulin Rouge"
Je vais marier ma fille de danse
Et habiter en France
"Comme la chanson est belle"
Chantez la Mademoiselle
Dansant dans le Moulin Rouge
Dansant dans le Moulin Rouge
Dansant dans le Moulin Rouge
"Oh la la la" she sang
Spinning till midnight swang,
Dancing in the Moulin Rouge
I love her love I do,
All of her children too,
Oh I thank you, Moulin Rouge!
Je vais marier ma fille de danse
Et habiter en France
"Comme la chanson est belle"
Chantez la Mademoiselle
Dansant dans le Moulin Rouge
Dansant dans le Moulin Rouge
Dansant dans le Moulin Rouge
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13. |
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Vois, Ci-dessous
Vois, ci-dessous, du Sacré-Coeur, les domes si blancs
sur la colline de l’artiste, les toits dans la brume,
coulisse en arrière à Pigalle, les grues se penchant
dans les ruelles, des beautés crues, continue autour
de Beaubourg, en abstraction, toutes ses poutrelles
exposées, les mangeurs de feu, les chanteurs de rue,
ce qui reste du vieux marché, et nous traversons
la Seine, boueuse et verte, se balançant, les meules
de foin, les portes, Nôtre-Dame, sans sacrement,
l’hôtel du poète,—la cité, nôtre mère. La buée
s’évaporant, la rivière se glissant, on s’est embrassés,
mais c’était volé; nous nous promenons Rue des Écoles,
comme toujours, toi disant—oh, la voici: la maison,
le pain, le vin de table, comme nulle part au monde.
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14. |
Saltimbanques
02:27
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Saltimbanques
Dans la plaine les baladins
S’éloignent au long des jardins
Devant l’huis des auberges grises
Par les villages sans églises
Et les enfants s’en vont devant
Les autres suivent en rêvant
Chaque arbre fruitier se résigne
Quand de très loin ils lui font signe
Ils ont des poids ronds ou carrés
Des tambours des cerceaux dorés
L’ours et le singe animaux sages
Quêtent des sous sur leur passage
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Stuart Anthony and Larry Beckett Lancaster, UK
Stuart Anthony is a singer/songwriter working with Tim Buckley lyricist & American poet Larry Beckett.
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